In the process of removing lath/plaster with a view to extending the room beneath the eaves. So far:
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The photos show the mid-roof purlin and where they seemingly rest on the party wall brick wall.
Also, the other 2 photos show the more substantial than I would have expected vertical timbers onto which the lath/plaster was fixed, with rebates into the purlin, and cut at an angle to the joists. Thing is, they *seem* to have no structural purpose beyond a support for the lath/plaster. They all twist by hand and don't seem to offer any support for the roof.
Is it safe to remove the vertical timbers, and extend under the eaves?
No, If you look carefully, they are nailed to the purlin. You'll also find that they are afixed to the ceiling joists in the same way - they are holding *up* the ceiling / floor joists - take them out and the floor will sag, and the ceilings below will also sag, in short, they are stays, and they are required.
Yes, they are - because that's the only way they could be fixed?
I've put a couple of additional pics up. One shows 3 stays that don't seem to do anything beyond provide a point of support for the now removed lath/plaster, and the rest are at best a poor fit - they all 'wiggle' now the lath's gone. The other shows the Velux.
I did live in an identical house a couple of years back where this space had been reclaimed. How might the support have been provided?
Before I saw the pics I was going to say - certainly not
Now that I have seen them I concede that you may be right. They are fixed that way because that is the only way that they could be fixed to form the side wall. They don't seem substantial enough to be doing anything structural
They certainly aren't "holding up" the floor, though they could be supporting the purlin, but its looks substantial enough to be supporting itself
These 'hangers' are holding up the joists, around here, in most victorian houses, they are 2X1 timbers and yes, people have removed them 'to make the loft bigger', with the result that the bedroom ceilings sag down a foot. The timbers in these photos are 3x2 and that's because they are holding floor joists rather than ceiling joists
They work both ways - I've seen roofs that have sagged massively because they've been removed.
To the OP, it's up to you, but if I were you, I'd go and buy some plasterboard and a few bags of skimming.
I will reserve judgement on these since I can't see enough of the rest of the structure - i.e. the span of the ceiling joists, and where there are supported (i.e. is there a mid span wall etc).
Is the place a semi or a terrace? If its a semi, how is the non party wall end of the purlin get supported?
However if there is a concern, about removing them, it does rather depend on how far back you want to shift the wall. Putting in new studs on the other side of the purlin, and then removing the existing would be pretty safe regardless of their role. You could go further back and fix them to the sides of the rafters and again achieve either purpose (support the roof or the hold up the floor).
Its not uncommon to have a tie beam that runs across the joist span roughly level with the purlin. It give a very small amount of support to each joist (its usually nailed down onto each), but its main function is to stop the joists twisting and buckling as easily.
I had thought the floor joists were *only* supported across their 3.5m span by the 9" solid external wall, and a solid 9" wall that runs up the centre of the house.
That's the way the ground floor ceilings are fixed - there aren't any similar struts or other joists support on the first floor. Mind, the ground floor ceilings do have a couple of cracks so maybe it's a design oversight. Equally, one of the first floor ceiling had in large part come down, despite the existing support. So there may have been a design issue at some point.
Out of interest, what's the room depth of those Victorian houses? And how are their ground floor ceilings supported?
Thanks, yes, that'd be safest.
Span is 5m, and they're supported in the wall at the two points shown in the pics (3 and 4 I think). No padstone. There's an identical span purlin higher up with no support (except possibly at the room/landing stud partition) and set in the wall in the same way.
Mid-terrace.
The existing studs (or struts?) rest on and are nailed to a floorboard. The floorboard is nailed to joists, and 4 of the 9 struts are fixed to through the board, into the joists. The remaining 5 'float', fixed only to the floorboard. I removed one by hand, just to the right of the Velux, with very little force.
The remainder of the purlin span, 2m outside that room over the stairs, is unsupported.
Yes, that's where I see an issue at this point - lateral as much as vertical support. Whether by accident or design, the existing arrangement would have helped prevent the roof from spreading.
My thinking at this point is to provide at least some support. How much and where TBD. I'm away now for a few days and I'll come back to it at the weekend.
The purpose of the hangers is to support the ceiling off the purlin. They need to be there, especially if you're intending to/already have flooring tin the roof space.
If the fixings are insecure, you need to make them secure.
The alternative to hangers is support from room dividing walls below. But the stiffening rafter at right angles to the ceiling rafters can't be removed either.
The project seems pointless as the space beyond the purlins is small. You could maybe use it as storage with access between the hangers.
Yes, I see your point. What I don't follow is why they were fitted so misaligned to the joists, pinned with just 2 nails, why they're fixed to a floorboard, and why the ground floor ceilings lack this support. As you can see, three of the hangers are completely unconnected to the purlin.
If it was me I'd fix them firmly to to the purlin and the joist, and perhaps the rafter. Maybe it was a Friday house :-)
Really, if their main purpose is to support a 3.5m ceiling, I'd do without some of them and take my chances - it's not what I'd call 'structural'.
I've not noticed this stiffening rafter - not sure what it is.
I lived in an identical house where it had been done. It actually makes a big difference to the feel of room. And it seems the structural safety of the house - although it had been done for 15 years without apparent effect, unless some cantilever type support arrangement or similar was used. I'll watch with interest :-;
In Scotland, you might need Building Control to remove such timbers. Certainly on sale, you might be required to show that consent was given to removal of apparently structural members.
From the photos it looks the same as my place where the uprights are actually nailed to the /floorboards/, so aren't providing any lifting support to the floor/ceiling. I did the same about 21 years ago and there has been no change to the floor/ceiling. But, as mentioned by others, if you have uprights strung between the purlin and the floor joists they are very likely supporting the floor.
My previous house had a 4m span or so from the front to centre wall, and they were 4x2" with no additional support.
They sagged a little, as this image shows:
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(about 3" of sag mid span)
My suspicion is that you are right, and they are nothing more than just there to make the dormer wall. However as I said before, depending on how far you want to move the wall back, you could instate something of equal (or likely better) function before you pull those out.
(you could alternatively stick a board across the ceiling in the room below with a couple of acrows screwed up gently under it. Take the struts out and see if there is any increased load on the acrows. That will give you chance to make good without introducing any more sag.
Have a look at the second picture down:
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That was the kind of thing. Its mainly there for lateral stiffening, however to make sure that we did not lose any support it was offering (which could only be that limited to what you can get from a couple of nails in tension), we strapped it to the purlin when we needed to cut it, and then latter replaced it with noggings fixed to the new floor joists.
The stiffening rafter prevents the ceiling joists from warping. This would cause cracks to appear in the plaster ceiling below. Even more important if you have plasterboard (as opposed to laths). Floorboards can replace the stiffening rafter. (It's only there because there are no floorboards) Plus somewhere to nail the hangers to.
The whole problem revolves around your ceiling rafters only being
4"deep (probably). This is only enough to span about three feet for a pukka floor. Hence the hangers.
A rule of thumb formula for floor joists depth is (assuming 16" spacing and 2" thick) width of room to be spanned in feet. Half it and add two.
So if you had a 12' span floor, half =six, add two =eight.
ie you would need an 8" deep joist to span 12'. So you can see what the problem is with your ceiling joists
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